The Empty Bookshelf

There is an empty bookshelf in my study on which I keep all the books I was going to write but didn’t.

I sit and scan my mind’s eye across their non-existent spines. I smile. I feel nostalgic for the time I imagined I might write them and for the weeks and months that I didn’t patiently work on them, that I didn’t toil over their sentences. I feel nostalgic for the research I didn’t undertake. I also feel nostalgic for the abandoning of them.

Here is a partial list of these non-existent or abandoned past works, in the chronological order of their non-completion and non-publication:

Untitled

(fiction, novella)

Untitled

(fiction, short story)

Untitled

(non-fiction, critical)

Untitled

(non-fiction, critical)

The Computer, 1968-2001: A Cultural History of the Present

(non-fiction, critical)

Beginning at the End: Science Fiction and the Fin-de-Siècle

(non-fiction, critical)

Untitled

(non-fiction, critical)

Untitled

(non-fiction, critical)

The City: A Critical Narrative

(fiction, critical-creative)

The Purple Tie

(fiction, short story)

Piano Sonata, Op. 1

(musical score)

Untitled

(collection of fragments)

by James Holden

This text is an edited version of one originally published in a blog post entitled 'Text: The Empty Bookshelf' on the HOARD website on Thursday 22nd May 2014. You can read this original blog post here.